Dressing up the twins (camera porn warning)

[sienarot]

I've always thought the Argus C3 was a neat looking little camera. I kept my eye on a few auctions on eBay here and there, but the prices always exceeded what I was willing to pay for one (which was pretty low to begin with). Plus I was pretty firm on getting one of the light brown coloured ones.

About a month and a half back, I came across an auction for a pair of black bodies. I have no idea why, but nobody was bidding on them. I'm guess it was either the lack of information, poor pictures, or the fact the seller only accepted money orders and no paypal. I figure, what the heck, maybe it'll go for the starting price so I put in a bid.

At the end of the auction, I scored myself two Argus C3s, a manual, a shooting guide, and two (dusty and cracked) leather cases for $10 plus shipping 🙂

As my money order was en route to the seller, I tried looking for replacement skins as I had no intentions of keeping the old, boring, and probably flaking black coverings. It looked like cameraleather.com was the only carrier of kits for the Argus C3. Morgan/cameraleather.com has a bit of a reputation on here of being slow to respond and even slower to ship, so I was a bit hesitant at first. I figured the most it would've cost me was $30 for a pair of new kits and since I paid next to nothing on the two C3s, I'd bite the bullet again.

Fortunately, within a few hours of sending my original email asking a few questions about his kits, Morgan responded. In fact, our communication went back and forth a few times in a very timely manner, so any skepticism I had in his customer service went away quickly. He even let me mix and match the colours in my kits at no extra charge as the materials were the same anyways.

The kits for my Arguses (Argii?) arrived this afternoon, about a week after I sent payment (which is extremely good considering I'm in Canada) and my cameras now have new coverings 🙂

What do you guys think?

Before:

Original coverings removed and awaiting new skin:

Voila:

More here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/okay_banana/tags/cameraporn/


Now to take it out shooting 😀

 

[Hephaestus]

Those look great! Retro colours, too!

 

[bcostin]

Very sharp! I just found my second C3 at a flea market today. It seems to work fine but it looks a little shabby. One of those kits would be just the thing.

 

[rich815]

Gorgeous!

Do they work?

I bought one once (described as "Works Great!") and it's shutter was sluggish, focus quite stiff, and the lens very soft. Sold it (with full disclosure of course!).

 

[ltketch]

They look real nice in those colours, but they also look funky nude as well!

 

[RayPA]

I think you need one dressed up in brick red. 🙂 Nice looking cameras.


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[GoodPhotos]

Morgan did a fine job for me with a custom cutting leathers for my MX-EVS too and wasn't slow to respond at all. Your bricks look fantastic! (you've easily trippled their worth.)

 

[sienarot]

Thanks guys! I'm really pleased with how they came out! Very spiffy looking now.

Very sharp! I just found my second C3 at a flea market today. It seems to work fine but it looks a little shabby. One of those kits would be just the thing.

Wow, great find for $7! I'd definitely recommend these kits from Morgan. I was really surprised how well they fit.

Gorgeous!

Do they work?

I bought one once (described as "Works Great!") and it's shutter was sluggish, focus quite stiff, and the lens very soft. Sold it (with full disclosure of course!).

I haven't had a chance to run any film through them yet, but as far as I can tell everything does work now. When I first got them, the slower speeds seemed a bit sluggish and on one of them (now the red one) the shutter would often get stuck at 1/10s. Since the original covering was removed, it would've been silly for me not to open it up and attempt to clean it up a bit. It's a surprisingly simple design inside. A bit of WD-40 on the timing gears and the thing loosened up just perfectly. Relubricated a few places here and there, and they were a lot more smoother now. I gave the rangefinder and viewfinder windows a good cleaning too. The focusing on the red one's still a little stiff, but it looks like it's the lens that's attributing that, so I'll take that apart and give it a quick once over when I have a chance. Once I give the rangefinder a quick calibration/check, it's off to the races I go 🙂

There's a couple websites on repairing an argus. This one was the most handy:
http://arguscg.tripod.com/Repairing_the_Argus_C3.htm

Morgan did a fine job for me with a custom cutting leathers for my MX-EVS too and wasn't slow to respond at all. Your bricks look fantastic! (you've easily trippled their worth.)

Yes, I was surprised when he said he wasn't going to charge me extra for mixing and matching the colours. Actually, it would've cost less if I had picked a lesser quality material for the black parts, but I wanted the grain textures to match. I'm quite pleased with his service. He sure has a lot more variety than Aki-Asahi and I'll definitely be doing more business with him in the future as I am looking for a TLR.